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Hidden History: Fairy Wife – The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Bridget and Michael Cleary Image Name: Bridget and Michael Cleary Description: Fairy Wife - The Burning of Bridget Cleary Copyright: © National Archives
Michael Cleary Image Name: Michael Cleary Description: Fairy Wife - The Burning of Bridget Cleary Copyright: © National Archives – Pen 1910/28

RTÉ’s acclaimed documentary series “Hidden History” returns this autumn and the first programme focuses on the tragic events which took place 110 years ago in the small Tipperary village of Ballyvadlea.


On Friday 22nd of March 1895, RIC constables discovered a badly burned body in a shallow grave. It is the body of Bridget Cleary, a 26-year old woman who had met her death at the hands of her husband only days before. His motive? He believed she had been taken away by the Fairies. Fairy Wife is a one-hour documentary, which explores the events surrounding the burning of Bridget Cleary and the massive impact it had on the country at the time.


Today in Ballyvadlea the Cleary cottage still stands. The local children nervously dare each other to go and see “the witch’s house”. Inside the room that bore witness to these terrible events remains eerily unchanged and although over a century has passed the events of that night hang over the community as a source of great shame.


Transcripts and newspaper reports from the time mean that what happened in the Cleary house is well documented. The story intertwines so many different layers and nuances that it serves as a microcosm of the country at that time. The religious, political and cultural struggles that ran through the country filter down to every level of society. Families, marriages and communities as a whole were governed by a complex set of beliefs that even then were difficult to understand.


Fairy Wife explores the case in detail, using recreations and the wealth of archival material that exist to outline events. Also expert analysis and folkloric memory are used to conjure the cultural and social atmosphere at the time of the murder.


BACKGROUND:


The Ireland of 1895 was a country on the cusp of two worlds. The old Ireland of fairy belief and superstition was giving way to a newer, more prosperous and modern world. However, the old traditions were slow to die and the young and vibrant Bridget Cleary was to fall victim to this transition.


Bridget Cleary (née Boland) was a native of Ballyvadlea, a small townland near Slievenamon in Tipperary. She was an attractive young woman with a strong personality.  Educated and trained as a dressmaker, Bridget symbolised the new emerging Ireland. She was ambitious and seemed determined to move higher up the social ladder. This streak in her did not warm her to some within her local community. At 18 Bridget had met and married Michael Cleary, nine years her senior. Cleary was also literate and a cooper by trade. In the year of her death Bridget and Michael had been married for 8 years but still had no children.


Ireland then was still a place where fairy stories, spells and charms were rife. It was a place where the seanchaí and the fairy-doctor held much sway. Bridget and Michael’s marriage had attracted a lot of gossip with their lack of children and his long absences due to work. 


The sequence of events that led to Bridget’s death began when she caught a cold, her condition quickly worsened and she was confined to bed with a “raging pain in her head”. In the days that followed she was visited by Jack Dunne who was the local seanchaí or fairy expert. By now Bridget had been confined to bed for a number of days and was looking tired and worn, not her usual well turned out self. Dunne declared that she was not Bridget Boland, that the woman in the bed had one leg shorter than the other, a sure sign that she was ‘away with the fairies’.


Over the days Bridget’s condition worsened. The doctor was called to examine her, but he took 5 days to arrive. Within that time the fairy idea begin to take root. Nine days into Bridget’s illness she was feverish and distressed. Michael’s nerves were frayed too from lack of sleep he became convinced that something serious was at work – that the woman in his bed was no longer his wife but a changeling. Bridget began to complain that Michael was trying to “make a fairy of her”. Dunne advised Michael to travel to a local fairy-doctor to get some herbs that would help bring his wife back. Michael took the advice and when he returned he enlisted the help of the men present to administer the mixture to Bridget.


All the men, mostly Bridget’s relations, descended on her room.  Her two cousins held her arms, while another pined her legs. Jack Dunne held her ears and her head as Michael tried to force-feed the mixture to her. Bridget struggled and protested, as the men shouted, “Away with you, come back Bridget Boland”. Not satisfied with her response the men carried her to the fire and held her over it, demanding, “Are you the daughter of Patrick Boland, wife of Michael Cleary? Answer in the name of God.” Finally the men were happy with the response they were given. Bridget returned to bed and the men relaxed for the night happy that the woman in bed was truly Bridget Cleary.


That should have been the end of the story. However within twenty-four hours Bridget Cleary was dead, burned alive at the hand of her husband, in a house full of her family and friends. Michael had become convinced that the fairy had returned, and that Bridget was not his wife, but an “an old deceiver” sent in her place. In the wake of her death Michael’s character became frantic and deranged. At knifepoint he forced one of Bridget’s cousins to help him bury the body in the shallow grave.


In the days that followed rumours flew around the village about Bridget’s disappearance. Within two days the RIC began a search for Bridget. The subsequent investigation, the trial and the media coverage of the case became symbolic of the old world battling against the new. A jealous husband or a man acting out his native beliefs? In the end, the verdict handed down was one of manslaughter – a verdict that had grappled with the contradictions and cultures surrounding the horrible death of Bridget Cleary.